The Diverse Families bookshelf was created and funded through numerous grants. Due to lack of additional grants and the loss of key personnel, the project has come to an end. We have tremendously enjoyed creating this database and hope that it can help bring readers and books together.
This collection contains materials from the DIVerse Families bibliography organized by genre.
DIVerse Families is a comprehensive bibliography that demonstrates the growing diversity of families in the United States. This type of bibliography provides teachers, librarians, counselors, adoption agencies, children/young adults, and especially parents and grandparents needing to empower their children with materials that reflect their families.
Browse by Genre:
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Drita, My Homegirl
Jenny Lombard Lombard
When ten-year-old Drita and her family, refugees from Kosovo, move to New York, Drita is teased about not speaking English well, but after a popular student named Maxine is forced to learn about Kosovo as a punishment for teasing Drita, the two girls soon bond.
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Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl's Courage Changed Music
Margarita Engle
Girls cannot be drummers. Long ago on an island filled with music, no one questioned that rule-until the drum dream girl. In her city of drumbeats, she dreamed of pounding tall congas and tapping small bongs̤. She had to keep quiet. She had to practice in secret. But when at last her dream-bright music was heard, everyone sang and danced and decided that both girls and boys should be free to drum and dream. Inspired by the childhood of Millo Castro Zaldarriaga, a Chinese-African-Cuban girl who broke Cuba's traditional taboo against female drummers, Drum Dream Girl tells an inspiring true story for dreamers everywhere.
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Drum Roll, Please
Lisa Jenn Bigelow
Melissa only joined the school band because her best friend, Olivia, begged her to. But it turns out Melly loves playing the drums. It's the only time she doesn't feel like a quiet mouse. And now she and Olivia get to spend the next two weeks jamming beneath the stars at Camp Rockaway. But this summer will be full of surprises that throw Melly's life out of sync. Her parents just revealed that they're splitting up. She and Olivia seem to be growing apart. And Melly finds herself unexpectedly falling for another girl at camp. To top it off, Melly's not sure she really has what it takes to be a rock 'n' roll drummer. Will she be able to make music from all the noise in her heart?
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Dumpling Soup
Jama Kim Rattigan
A young Asian American girl living in Hawaii tries to make dumplings for her family's New Year's celebration.
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Echo After Echo
Amy Rose Capetta
Zara Evans has come to the Aurelia Theater, home to director Leopold Henneman, to play a dream role in Echo and Ariston, the Greek tragedy that taught her everything she knows about love. When the director asks Zara to promise that she will have no outside commitments, no distractions, it's easy to say yes. But are the deaths at the theater accidents, or murder, or a curse that always comes in threes? When assistant lighting director Eli Vasquez, a girl made of tattoos and abrupt laughs and every form of light, looks at Zara it's hard not to fall in love.
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Edgar Allan
John Neufeld
When the Fickett family decides to adopt a little black boy, they are faced with threats, angry phone calls, a burning cross on the lawn, and an ultimatum from their oldest daughter.
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Either the Beginning or the End of the World
Terry Farish
For sixteen years, it's been just Sofie and her father, living on the New Hampshire coast. Her Cambodian immigrant mother has floated in and out of her life, leaving Sofie with a fierce bitterness toward her-and a longing she wishes she could outgrow. "To me she is as unreliable as the wind." Then she meets Luke, an army medic back from Afghanistan, and the pull between them is as strong as the current of the rushing Piscataqua River. But Luke is still plagued by the trauma of war, as if he's lost with the ghosts in his past. Sofie's dad orders her to stay away; it may be the first time she has ever disobeyed him. "A ghost can't love you." When Sofie is forced to stay with her mother and grandmother while her dad's away, she is confronted with their memories of the ruthless Khmer Rouge, a war-torn countryside, and deeds of heartbreaking human devotion. "I don't want you for ancestors. I don't want that story." As Sofie and Luke navigate a forbidden landscape, they discover they both have their secrets, their scars, their wars. Together, they are dangerous. Together, they'll discover what extraordinary acts love can demand.
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Eleanor & Park
Rainbown Rowell
Two misfits. One extraordinary love. Eleanor -- Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough -- Eleanor. Park -- He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises -- Park. Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds -- smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.
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Eleven and Holding
Mary Penney
Macy Hollinquest is eleven years old, and don't count on her to change that anytime soon. Her birthday is just days away, but she has no intention of turning twelve without her dad by her side. He'd promised to be there for her big day, and yet he's been gone for months -- away after his discharge from the army, doing some kind of top secret, "important work." So Macy's staying eleven, no matter what -- that is, until she meets Ginger, a nice older lady who is searching for her missing dog. Ginger's dog search is the perfect cover for Macy's attempt to locate her dad. But her hunt puts her on a path to a head-on collision with the truth, where she discovers that knowing can sometimes be a heavy burden. And that change, when finally accepted, comes with an unexpected kind of grace.
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Elizabeth Gail and the Holiday Mystery
Hilda Stahl
Christmas time was supposed to be the happiest time of the year, but Libby was miserable. Goosy Poosy is missing! Can Libby find him before he becomes someone's Christmas dinner?
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Ellabug
Gregory Turner-Rahman
Ellabug is a simple story about non-traditional families that follows Ella, a small but strong-willed ladybug, as she begins to question her identity.
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Elliot
Julie Pearson
When Elliot's parents do not know how to take care of him, a social worker takes him to live with a foster family, which begins a series of changes that leave Elliot worried and anxious, until he finds a forever home and a forever family.
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Emily Goldberg Learns to Salsa
Micol Ostow
Forced to stay with her mother in Puerto Rico for weeks after her grandmother's funeral, half-Jewish Emily, who has just graduated from a Westchester, New York, high school, does not find it easy to connect with her Puerto Rican heritage and relatives she had never met.
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Emily in Love
Susan Goldman Rubin
A developmentally-disabled fourteen-year-old faces the challenges of her classes at a "regular" high school, a new job, and a budding romance.
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Emily's Blue Period
Cathleen Daly
After her parents get divorced, Emily finds comfort in making and learning about art.
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Emma and Meesha My Boy: A Two Mom Story
Kaitlyn Considine
Emma lives with her two moms and a chubby housecat. Follow along as Emma gets in trouble while trying to play with Meesha Kitty; and cheer as she learns to treat him with care.
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Emma's Story
Deborah Hodge
When Emma sets out to make a cookie family with Grandma and Sam, the happy afternoon suddenly turns sad. The cookies are meant to look like her family, but Emma's is the only one with dark hair and eyes. She doesn't look like the others; does that mean she doesn't belong? In this tender story, Emma learns that there are many ways to come together and form a family.
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Emma's Yucky Brother
Jean Little
Emma finds out how hard it is to be a big sister when her family adopts a four-year-old boy named Max.
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Emmy & Oliver
Robin Benway
Since her best friend Oliver was kidnapped ten years ago, Emmy's parents have smothered her with their relentless worry, and when Oliver suddenly reappears in his hometown, he and Emmy struggle to face the messy, confusing consequences of the crime.
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Empress of the World
Sara Ryan
While attending a summer institute for gifted students, fifteen-year-old Nic meets a girl named Battle, falls in love with her, and finds the relationship to be difficult and confusing.
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Epossumondas Plays Possum
Coleen Salley
Forgetting his mother's warnings, Epossumondas goes into the swamp alone then must pretend to be dead time and again as he hears frightening sounds and fears they are being made by the dreaded loup garou.
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Escaping Perfect (Escaping Perfect, #1)
Emma Harrison
To escape her extremely sheltered life, eighteen-year-old Cecilia grabs a chance to strike out on her own in Sweetbriar, Tennessee, where she is transformed by her first job, apartment, and love but always waits for her mother, a U.S. Senator, to find her.
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Esperanza Rising
Pam Munoz Ryan
Esperanza thought she'd always live with her family on their ranch in Mexico--she'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home, and servants. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California during the Great Depression, and to settle in a camp for Mexican farm workers. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard labor, financial struggles, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When their new life is threatened, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances--Mama's life, and her own, depend on it.
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Everett Anderson's Christmas Coming
Lucille Clifton
Relates, in verse, the excitement and joy of a young boy anticipating as well as celebrating Christmas in the city.
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Everett Anderson's Friend
Lucille Clifton
Having eagerly anticipated the new neighbors, a boy is disappointed to get a whole family of girls.